Cranberry Currants Biscuit (low fat)

Cranberry Currants Biscuit (low fat)
Ever since I made cranberry shortbread, I fell in love with biscuits with dried cranberry in them. I do fancy them quite often but the amount of butter somehow puts me down. It may rather be easy to buy a packet of biscuit but when I read the list of ingredients in them, I invariably put them back in the supermarket shelf or even worse, I buy them, but not gather the courage to eat them and eventually bin them after the ‘expiry’ date. It is so satisfying when you know exactly what is going into your tummy and as well as that of people you love. When I started off with my baking trials (quite nervously), I did try a biscuit with oil and no butter. However, it only came out like a cookie (chewy and soft) and not crispy and have a bite. This time, when I came across an interesting recipe that called only for oil, I was intrigued. In the last few months, I have learned a lot around baking and thought now may be the time to try a recipe that has much less butter in it. Rather than going 0% butter, I divided the total fat between butter and oil and I must say that despite this, overall fat content of the biscuit is still lesser than what would normally be used. I thought that completely butterless biscuit will not go down well and there is no point in baking something that will sit on my counter glaring at me. You could use margarine if you wish or if you are bolder than I am, do try 100% oil and let me know how it turns out. Eventually, the recipe was nothing like where I drew the inspiration from but I am glad I ran into that recipe...

¼ cup butter, softened
¼ cup sunflower oil
2 ½ teaspoon baking powder
¾ cup whole wheat flour
¾ cup all purpose flour
Less than ½ cup brown sugar
¼ cup dried currants
¼ cup dried cranberries
¼ cup milk

Sift together the flours and baking powder

Add the sugar and mix. Add the cranberries, currants (soak the currants in water for five minutes before adding to avoid them burning), softened butter and mix by hand so the mixture looks like breadcrumbs

Add the oil and mix further so it just begins to form a dough

Add the milk but make sure you add just enough milk to make a soft dough. Depending on the flour, the milk quantity may vary. As I thought the dough was slightly more softer than needed (it would have been ok if I had rested the dough in the fridge) I added couple of tablespoons of bran, you could add oats or just more flour too

Divide into portions and roll a disc of about 3-5mm thick and cut into desired shapes and place on a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper. Leave about an inch gap between each of them.

Bake in a preheated oven at 180degC for 10-12 minutes, until the biscuits brown. Transfer to cooling rack and store in air tight container once cooled

Chocolate Cream Biscuit

Chocolate Cream Biscuit


I am quite sure Bourbon biscuit would have been popular among most growing children and many adults would have memories of opening up the biscuit, licking the cream first and then eating the rest of the biscuit. I had not really thought of making them at home but that was only until I came across a recipe on a book I had bought in India. I had put it in my to try list for ages but never got around to do it. Finally it saw daylight and I tried it with a bit of scepticism about how the cream will turn out. Well, it all turned out to be very good and it went down a treat – with adults and kid. I am not sure how well it will last in warm regions as the cream is primarily butter and wonder if it will melt (although I think the sugar will prevent this from happening). Here is how to make it...

250g flour (I used a mixture of all purpose and whole wheat flour)
125g butter/margarine
125g sugar
3 teaspoons coco powder
½ teaspoon soda bicarbonate

For cream:
25g butter
50g powdered sugar
½ teaspoon coco powder

Cream together the sugar and margarine/butter until combined

Sift together the flours, soda bicarbonate and coco powder

Add the sugar and make a soft dough. Try to avoid temptation to add milk or water, instead rest the dough for five minutes and it will become softer

Divide into portions and roll into about 2mm thick disc. Cut to desired shape and place on a lined baking tray and bake in a preheated oven at 180degC for 13-15 minutes

Transfer to cooling rack and allow to cool completely

For the cream, bring together the butter, powdered sugar and coco powder and mix well

Put this on the centre of one biscuit and place another on top to sandwich the cream

Yum Yum!

Black Forest Cake

Black Forest Cake


It was a special person’s (actually two of them) birthday and every year I would make a gift for them. This year however, circumstances did not allow me to find the energy and time to make a gift. For time being, a handmade cake was going to be it. However, I did take a lot of effort and care to make the cake and decorate it as well. I am not usually a frosting or cake decoration person because we do not usually like cakes loaded with sugar and cream. As the occasion was special, I chose to make a special cake. I chose a black forest cake, eggless though and had to make couple of substitutes. Usually it is made with dark chocolate and cherries. My wee one picked up couple of milk chocolates for baking and insisted we buy them so had to use those up. Not complaining because it was a good brand of chocolate at very little price. I had no cherries on stock as it is not a fruit we normally buy and substituted it with strawberries. I used evaporated milk instead of plain milk as it has about 605 of the water content evaporated and is thicker than regular milk. This makes teh cake taste slightly richer. Usually the whipped cream is sweetened with couple of spoons of sugar spread between layers of the cake. I chose to spread a layer of cream as well as melted chocolate to suit our preference. I also did not add sugar to the whipped cream, you could if you like but be gentle while mixing. The cake was a instant hit and am super chuffed with the result!

2 cups all purpose flour
4 tablespoon cornflour (refer notes below)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 tablespoon vinegar
8 teaspoons coco powder
1 cup caster sugar
¼ cup brown sugar
100g butter, melted
1 can evaporated milk
6-8 tablespoon water

Decoration and assembly
1 tub whipped cream
1 pack of chocolate, grated
½ pack chocolate (about 75g)
2 tablespoon milk
Few strawberries or rasberries or cherries

Sift together the flour and cornflour atleast twice. Then add baking powder, baking soda, coco powder and sift well so the flour mixture is aerated

In a separate bowl, bring together the sugar (caster and brown) and melted butter until combined

Add the evaporated milk and blend together

Gradually add the flour mixture until just combined. Add vinegar and mix briefly

Transfer to lined cake tin, tap gently about ten times to release excess bubbles and bake in preheated oven at 180degC for 30-40 minutes. A skewer inserted in the centre should come out clean. I rested the cake in the oven for further 10 minutes with oven turned off. Then cool outside for five minutes before transferring to cooling rack

Start the decoration only after cooling the cake completely. Slice the cake into two halves

Melt the half pack of chocolate along with couple of tablespoon milk in a double boiler

Spread this on the bottom part of the cake. Allow to cool

Take some whipped cream and spread on the chocolate already spread

Place the top part of the cake and spread whipped cream on the sides of the cake

Spread whipped cream on the top of the cake. Also put some whipped cream in a piping bag and make your own designs. Cover the cake with grated chocolate and cherries/strawberries/raspberries

Notes:

I chose to use my own cake flour, which is for every cup of all purpose flour, remove two tablespoons of flour and replace with cornflour. If you chose not to do this, skip the cornflour in the recipe and use just 2 full cups of all purpose flour

Make sure you keep the cake, cream and chocolate in the fridge every now and then else the heat could disrupt the workability

You will have to store the cake in the fridge as it is decorated with cream

For ease, I bought readymade whipped cream instead of buying heavy cream and whipping it myself